Fungi are an integral part of the web of life. They form partnerships with 90% of our Australian plants, and help to deliver essential micronutrients which the plants need to thrive. Fungi help to build healthy soil and protect their host plants from disease. They even help trees ‘talk’ to each other!

Fungi are a major player in nutrient recycling. They play a critical role in decomposing organic matter, especially wood and leaves. Without fungi, all of our plants would be stunted, and all the wood that has ever fallen would remain because there is nothing to help it rot!

Imagine you can look beneath the soil within a healthy bushland. You would see a massive network of interwoven fungal threads, plant roots and micro-organisms. Healthy soil is teeming with life! There are just as many species below the ground as above – and many are fungi.

Fungi are vastly under-studied. There are over 50,000 species of fungi in Australia and yet only 24% of them have been described and named. We know even less about their distribution and the health of their populations.

Fungi are susceptible to many of the same threats that affect our native animals and plants – including bushland clearance, disturbance changes (fire and flood), weeds and climate change.

Yellow coral fungusRamaria lorithamnus

Defining Features• up to 8 cm across• yellow branches are

slender and densely clustered

• tips have 1-2 forks (rarely 3) like little fingers

• turns wine-red when bruised

• yellow–brown spores

Image credit: Neale Dyster

Find our fungi! Discovering fungi of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin through citizen science.

Have you handled fungi?

Did you know some fungi are toxic? We recommend you wash your hands after handing fungi.

Tough poreTough texture, with pores on the underside.

Puff ballPowdery spores within a roundish sac with a central hole at the top.

GillFleshy cap with an underside of gills radiating from centre.

Club and coralCoral or club-shaped with fleshy texture.

This ID chart has ten target species that each belong to one of the four groups:

Cora

l

= Typical fruiting time

May-Oct

Fly agaricAmanita muscaria

Image credit: Malcolm McKinty

Defining features • up to 25 cm across• cap edge is smooth or

faintly grooved• stem has skirt-like ring • stem base is bulbous

with scaly bands• white spores Gi

ll

Vermilion grisetteAmanita xanthocephala

Defining features • up to 5 cm across• cap edge has

grooves• bare stem (no ring) • bright yellow–

orange rim on the swollen base

• white spores

Image credit: Neale Dyster

Gill

Elegant blue webcapCortinarius rotundisporus

Defining features • up to 7 cm across• cap is blue and slimy• cap centre is dark

yellow• stem is long (up to

14 cm)• rusty-brown spores

Image credit: Neale Dyster

Gill

June-July

April-July

May-OctApril-SeptTo enable the community to help us learn

more, we have chosen the ten fungi species on this chart as ‘target species’. We encourage

you to look for these 10 species and submit records via the fungimap project on iNaturalist.

For details on how to do this and what records to submit, please collect a free copy of our

‘Find Our Fungi’ booklet from your local SAMDB NRM office – or contact the Mt Barker

office on 8391 7500.

We need your help!

Image credit: David Pearce

Submit onlineUpload your photos and information about the target fungi on this identification chart via the Fungimap project on iNaturalist.

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fungimap-australia

Image credit: Nicola Barnes

Nargan’s bonnetMycena nargan

Defining features• up to 2 cm across• cap is dark brown

with white spots • white spores

Image credit: Geoff Carle

July-Aug

Gill

Ghost fungusOmphalotus nidiformis

Defining features• up to 30 cm across• glows in the dark• fan or funnel-shaped• cap is white-cream

with darker centre• grows on logs or

base of trees• white spores

Image credit: Kearn Jones

Gill

Orange mosscap Rickenella fibula

Defining features • up to 1 cm across• cap is orange and

flattens with age• stem is long and

slender• cap and stem

covered in fine hairs• grows within moss• white spores

Image credit: Nicola Barnes

Gill

Copper coinColtricia cinnamomea

Defining features • up to 5 cm across• cap has cinnamon–

brown bands (like age-rings on a tree)

• cap has distinctive sheen of tiny, shiny, radiating hairs

• underside has pores not gills

• yellow–brown spores

Image credit: David Catcheside

Toug

h po

re

May-Sept

Collared earthstarGeastrum triplex

Image credit: Neale Dyster

Defining features • up to 12 cm across

rays• thin, spherical sac

sitting in a star-shaped cup

• 4 to 8 rays curl under, rays often crack to form a ‘collar’ around spore sac

• no dirt stuck to underside

• pale ring around pointed spore-releasing pore

• brown spores

Puff

ball

July-Sept

Yellow navelLichenomphalia chromacea

Defining features• up to 2.5 cm across• yellow with central

indent• flattens to funnel

shape with age• always grows on mat

of green algae• white spores

Gill

June-July

May-Sept May-July

• shape and colour• cap colour & texture• spore surface e.g. gills or pores• stem e.g. ring present or not• stem base e.g. sac present or not• habitat area e.g. native forest and woodlands, eucalypt

forests, mallee, river redgum community, thick moss beds, mats of green algae and bare soil.

Top things to look for when identifying fungi:

Image credit: Neale Dyster